January’s Buzz:

NEW YEAR’S SCREENWRITING RESOLUTIONS
(Copyright 2008)
by
Kathryn McCullough

Along with your New Year’s resolution to finish that script you’ve been working on, or start the one you’ve been thinking about, or send out the one you’ve finished, here are some additional goals for any serious writer’s list:

1. Take a class, or two. Writing classes offer many benefits. In addition to learning the tools to improve your craft, you’ll have access to feedback, both from the teacher and from your peers. A class gives you a set structure, usually with a deadline, to help keep you on track with your writing. A class is also a good place to find people with whom to form a critique group. If you’ve been writing for a while or have already taken some classes, look for more advanced classes that narrow in on one issue, such as character development or comedy. If your schedule or geographical location prevents you from attending a screenwriting class in person, there are now many classes offered on-line.

2. Know the names and works of successful screenwriters. If you don’t know who wrote the scripts of the films you most admire, it seems likely that you have not been paying very much attention to the screenplays when watching films. Yet, it is hard to imagine any novelist or painter who is not familiar with those who excel in their calling.

3. Read scripts. The more you read other writers’ works, the better your own work will be. Reading scripts by writers you admire will allow you to study how they approach different issues, from developing tension to structuring individual scenes. Don’t limit yourself to produced scripts, however. Reading scripts written by members of your writing group or writing class and providing feedback will help you hone your analytical skills, which you can then use on your own work.

4. Watch movies. While it is essential that you study screenplays, you also need to see how the scripts were executed. What parts that worked on the page didn’t work on the screen, and vice versa? What was cut from the script and why? Sometimes elements such as exposition are necessary in a script but not essential in the film, where performance, cinematography and direction are able to get things across in a more subtle fashion. If you loved the movie, try to pinpoint what it was about the script that made this story excel. If you didn’t like the movie, brainstorm a rewrite, fixing the areas you had problems with. Also, study the DVDs of movies whose scripts you admire and break down the structure. Watching a film on DVD will allow you to take notes and to time out the sequences and act breaks. It often helps to watch several films in the genre you are writing. When you get stuck, you can consult these breakdowns for help.

5. Don’t limit yourself to screenwriting. Learning about or practicing any kind of writing will help you develop your skills. Study plot development and characterization in novels. Study dialogue in plays. Read short stories and graphic novels, many of which contain structures very similar to those of film scripts. Take a fiction or playwriting class.

6. Write the whole script. The first act is almost always the easiest to write. Where writers get in trouble is in the second act. However, you are not going to be able to sell a first act, even with a detailed treatment of the rest of the story, because film executives all know that the second act is the hardest part. Many writers get stuck in the second act, give up and move on to the next project, or revise the first act over and over and over again for years. However, the only way to get better at tackling the second act is to write it.

7. Rewrite the script several times. Every pass through the script is going to allow you to get deeper into the characterizations, polish the plot, develop the themes, and set-up events that occur later. Revision is the hardest but the most educational part of writing.

8. Get regular feedback. This could come from a fellow writer, a writing group, a class or a consultant. What is important is that you receive some objective criticism before you start sending your script to agents and producers. You need to know how someone who is not as emotionally invested in your screenplay as you are will respond to the story. What doesn’t make sense? What elements need developing?

9. Read a book. No writer is so experienced or capable that he or she cannot benefit from learning from an expert. The best-known works are those by Syd Field, Linda Seger and Robert McKee, but almost every writing book will offer at least one new way of looking at a craft issue you have been struggling with. Books about writing give you concrete tools to help you on your path to becoming a successful and confident screenwriter.

10. Keep writing. As with any skill, from lifting weights to cooking, practice will make you better at it over time.